11 March 2020
Chris Johnston
By ema
il: [FYI request #11355 email]
Dear Chris
Official information request for information on Office365 searches
I refer to your requests for information under the Official Information Act 1982 (the Act)
dated 17 February 2020.
Each of your requests, and the University’s response, is set out below.
1) “The search terms used in O365 for each search - this helps me to understand the
completeness of the search. For example "Dr Ned Nikolov" would yield different
results to Dr Ned Nikolov without quotes or Nikolov by itself.”
The three individual searches carried out were:
• "Dr Ned Nikolov" - (quotes included);
• "Dr Karl Zeller" - (quotes included);
• "Dr Roy Spencer" - (quotes included).
2) “What repositories O365 includes for Victoria University that are included in the
search (e.g. SharePoint, Email etc).”
The following repositories are included in the Office365 search:
• Email;
• Office365 Groups;
• Skype for Business;
• Teams messages;
• To-Do;
• Sway;
• Forms;
• SharePoint sites;
• OneDrive accounts;
• Office365 Group sites;
• Teams sites;
• Exchange Public Folders.
3) “Whether the whole of the university email system runs through O365 - or
whether there are other email platforms used. This tells me whether the email
search is likely to cover all email traffic for the University.”
The official email system for University staff is Office365. The School of Engineering and
Computer Science does operate its own email system, but this is archived daily to
Office365. Accordingly, the Office365 search covers the entire University email system.
If you wish to discuss this decision with us, please feel free to contact me at
[VUW request email] or 04 463 5249.
Yours sincerely
Georgia Tawharu
Adviser, Information Access and Copyright
